Critical spin liquid versus valence-bond glass in a triangular-lattice organic antiferromagnet

Kira Riedl (), Roser Valentí and Stephen M. Winter ()
Additional contact information
Kira Riedl: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 1
Roser Valentí: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 1
Stephen M. Winter: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 1

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract In the quest for materials with unconventional quantum phases, the organic triangular-lattice antiferromagnet κ-(ET)2Cu2(CN)3 has been extensively discussed as a quantum spin liquid (QSL) candidate. The description of its low temperature properties has become, however, a particularly challenging task. Recently, an intriguing quantum critical behaviour was suggested from low-temperature magnetic torque experiments. Here we highlight significant deviations of the experimental observations from a quantum critical scenario by performing a microscopic analysis of all anisotropic contributions, including Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya and multi-spin scalar chiral interactions. Instead, we show that disorder-induced spin defects provide a comprehensive explanation of the low-temperature properties. These spins are attributed to valence bond defects that emerge spontaneously as the QSL enters a valence-bond glass phase at low temperature. This theoretical treatment is applicable to a general class of frustrated magnetic systems and has important implications for the interpretation of magnetic torque, nuclear magnetic resonance, thermal transport and thermodynamic experiments.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10604-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-10604-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10604-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().